FIFA not rescheduling Club World Cup after complaint from players’ union, leagues

ZURICH: FIFA will not consider rescheduling their new 32-team Club World Cup, world soccer’s governing body said on Friday after global players’ union FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association (WLA) threatened legal action if they did not review their plans.

FIFPRO and WLA expressed their concern over the expanded competition last week in a letter addressed to FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom.

Their letter said the global football calendar is “beyond saturation” and that national leagues are unable to properly organise their competitions, while players are being pushed beyond their limits, with significant injury risks.

In response, FIFA rejected their claims that the soccer body made unilateral decisions to benefit its competitions in the international calendar. In the letter seen by Reuters, Grafstrom stated that they have regularly engaged with relevant stakeholders on the subject of the International Match Calendar (IMC).

Grafstrom said both FIFPRO and WLA were involved in discussions on the future of the calendar in 2021 and 2022. “It should be noted that the views expressed by FIFPRO and the WLA during the consultation process influenced the IMC to such an extent that it was closer - and in many ways substantially identical - to the version which was already in place previously, as opposed to the version proposed at the start of the consultation,” Grafstrom wrote. “Consequently, there could hardly be a clearer demonstration not only that a genuine consultation took place but also that your views were very much taken into account during the course of that consultation.”